Kristopher Jansma - Why We Came to the City

Sara shot George a quizzical look, and George shrugged.

William figured this was as good a time as any for him to make his exit, so he tapped Sara on her shoulder and, faking a yawn, said, “I should get going.” He reached in his pocket to grab a business card, but before he could get there, he found his hand intercepted by something else — by another hand, divinely smooth and soft.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” said Irene. “You’ve barely said a word to me yet.”

William felt his whole body choke up. “Hello,” he managed to say.

“Hey, Sara, could I see you on the balco—” George interrupted.

But Sara was busy. “Jacob, did you know William did his thesis on The Iliad ?”

William nodded. “I worked with Professor Douglas. On the paradox of fatality and divinity… I mean, the idea that to some extent the mighty Olympian gods were restricted by the Three Fates, that they were some kind of independent panel—”

“Sure, sure,” Jacob interrupted. “So what translation do you like?”

“Lattimore.”

Jacob coughed. “Lattimore? Come on! Fagles or Lombardo, even, did it way better. Christ, I can’t believe they let you into Yale with Lattimore .”

Irene spoke mischievously, “Hey, don’t knock my man Lattimore. Besides, I heard Fagles and Lambada were total quacks. Hopped up on bennies, translating into the dead of night. A trail of broken hearts behind them.”

“Oh, you be quiet,” Jacob poked her in the side.

“Hey,” Irene pouted, “we’ve been here how long? How about a hello?”

Jacob bowed toward her. “My liege.”

William felt his face turn red. He’d never known people who ricocheted so swiftly between obnoxiousness and affection. He supposed they had had a lot of practice over the years.

He tried to return to familiar ground. “Well, Fagles makes it sound very nice , but—”

“Nice? Nice? This is Homer we’re talking about, not a Hallmark card! Nice? My God!”

As Jacob began a familiar tirade about society’s overuse of certain adjectives and their eventually being rendered meaningless, George excused himself to the bathroom. Nobody noticed him slip away. There was a bit of a wait, so he polished off another tasteless Wasteland while he stood in line. The drinks were blotting out the surrounding party but also having the unfortunate effect of amplifying his nervous thoughts. He thought splashing a little cold water on his face might do the trick. At last he got inside, where there was relative peace, and took three long deep breaths.

The bathroom was all white marble and great Greek arches. It was the only room in the suite that hadn’t been redecorated with contemporary art, and as he washed his hands and splashed cold water on his face, he appreciated the refreshing, comfortable hotel art — the white cliffs overlooking a Minos seaside, a round bronze platter covered in faux verdigris, the cherubic statuary above the bath.

Alone at last, he let his expression fall and stared into his own eyes in the mirror. His hair was everywhere, and his suit jacket was too tight in the shoulders somehow. He wasn’t used to feeling nervous and self-conscious. He’d been perfectly fine until that stupid accident — but he didn’t want to think about that, tonight of all nights. Delicately, he took the engagement ring out of his pocket and placed it on the countertop in the light. He’d never understood before. Why diamonds? he’d always asked. Seems kind of arbitrary . But now that he was looking at the ring and trying to imagine putting it on Sara’s finger, anything less seemed unworthy, impermanent. What he’d said to Jacob was the truth. He couldn’t imagine any scenario in which Sara would say no. It had been such a foregone conclusion for so long that he was now worried only about doing justice to their decade together.

He nudged the ring with his fingertip. Would it fit? He’d measured her finger with a little piece of string one night while she’d been sleeping. But what if he’d done it wrong? The ring seemed too narrow. He nudged it again. The drain in the neighboring sink was wide open, and a deep chill ran up and down his spine. He hadn’t realized. Don’t knock it into the sink. Don’t bump it. Pick it up carefully… Jesus! He lowered his fingers like an arcade crane, from directly above. Even being careful, it slipped just a little. He thought his head would explode. His head or his heart. But he had it, and he was lifting it, and he would not drop it.

Still, some perverse imp inside his head was making him imagine it: his sweaty fingertips would loosen; he would try to grip it more firmly, but it would slip even more. Then he would hear it — the dread clink of the band against porcelain. He would look down into the basin just in time to see it clink again. He would reach in to snatch it, but he would only knock it closer. It would bounce around his groping hand like a glittering mosquito and then be gone . Gone. Down the drain. Lost forever.

He clenched the ring tightly in his fist, feeling the diamond pricking his palm. He thought about praying for some kind of reassurance, but someone was jiggling the knob. God, he couldn’t wait until it was over, and he could wake up tomorrow feeling good again. Gently he put the ring back in the box and the box back in his pocket. He felt as if he might vomit, but then the doorknob was going again. There were people waiting.

• • •

The party simmered a little longer but never quite boiled. Four or five people made an attempt at dancing ironically to the Czech folk music being played off somebody’s iPod, and then there was a lot of laughing, and there was no more dancing after that. Someone almost knocked into the Chevrolet bumper, and someone else passed out in the attached bedroom, and someone was saying the caterers were nearly out of food, and someone else was saying the bartenders would only be on until two and why not grab a cab down to this new club on Allen Street, and then the suite was half empty.

Irene barely noticed. People seemed far more willing to put their own coats on, now that they’d had a few drinks, and Abeba walked out with an arm around a buyer for the Goldman Sachs building. A minute later Juliette shoved an envelope into Irene’s hands and ran after her. Neither of them came back. Then, more or less without warning, it was all over. Irene got a text message from Abeba that said, Going tpo Jersey thxz v much for all hlp. Irene gave the caterers their checks and tips from Juliette’s envelope, and the bartenders kindly left behind a few half-empty bottles, and then there was no one left but them.

This had never happened before, in the years they’d been coming to the party, and they were as thrilled as young children allowed to stay up long after the adults had gone to bed.

“I’m going to defile some of this so-called art,” Jacob roared.

“You can’t defile it,” Sara shouted. “It’s already disgusting.”

“I shall hump the moldy yam!” Jacob announced. But its green plastic case proved impenetrable, so he settled for miming fellatio on the wrought-iron baboon.

“What kind of art do you make?” William asked Irene nervously.

Irene, through her laughter, managed to say, “Nothing like this.”

“To the balcony!” Jacob cried, grabbing a fresh bottle of champagne in one fist and shoving the door open with the other. Freezing air rushed in, and flakes of snow danced around their heads before being obliterated by the room temperature.

“The hotel wants us to stay off there!” Irene shouted.

“Then they should have locked it!”

“You realize it’s snowing. Like, a lot,” George said, even as he followed Jacob out. The dark tops of the neighboring skyscrapers waved like great trees in the wind, and it took him a moment to realize it was he who was leaning, not them.